Speech acts and conversation

The topic of speech acts and conversation is an often overlooked aspect of linguistics. People use language as a tool to do things, such as asking questions, offering greetings, and performing many other verbal actions in everyday life. Mastery of language is not limited to just grammatical competence. If that were the case, then every sentence would have only one interpretation.

Compare the following situations:

Case 1: A police officer stops you, and informs you that you've driven through a stop sign. You reply, "I didn't see the stop sign."

Case 2: A friend is throwing a party and has given you directions to his new house. The directions mention to take a left at the 2nd stop sign. You arrive about an hour late and reply "I didn't see the stop sign."

Notice that the context has a huge role in determining the meaning of the sentence uttered. In case 1, you are uttering an explanation for failing to stop. In case 2, you are making an excuse for your lateness.

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Upcoming posts on this blog will cover more on this topic of speech acts and conversation.

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Speech acts and conversation